La traversée de Paris

I guess all over the world, moviegoers know this film, for its cast and dialogues. Typical French cinema at its peak, far far better than LES VISITEURS crap made in the nineties. Jean Gabin, Bourvil and Louis De Funès - then still a supporting character, not very well known yet - are absolutely unforgettable in those fantastic roles. The story takes place in Paris, under German occupation, during WW2. You can easily watch this film without getting tired, you can watch it over and over again, you enjoy it more and more. Like a good wine, the more you wait to watch it between your movies sessions, the better it is. One scene in particula, between Gabin Bourvil and De Punès is particularily terrific and funny in the same time, a concentration of talent of the most important actors that French movie industry has ever had. An absolute must see. Claude Autant Lara's masterpiece, and best know, worldwide known film.

The bringing together of two great comic actors of the calibre of Jean Gabin and Bourvil could not fail to be a great success, but this film surpasses the audience's expectations by several hundred kilometres. For both actors, this is a real tour de force. Bourvil is the hapless stooge to Gabin's outrageously forceful character, and the double act is unbelievably funny. One can't help but have pity for the poor unemployed Parisian as his night-time trudge across Paris is turned into his worst nightmare.

Whilst much of the humour is in the performance of its two stars (joined by Louis de Funes in that amazing cellar scene near the start of the film), the script is well-written and genuinely funny in places. The menace of the Nazi threat is there all the same, and this is heightened by the darkened sets representing a deserted Paris, resounding with the distant tread of the German patrols. The last twenty minutes of the film is a distinct contrast to what preceded it, and the humour appears to fade very quickly into drama. Luckily, our heroes emerge unscathed (possibly), but the threat of what might have been substantially changes one's view of the film.

Needless to say, when this film was released in 1956, scarcely 10 years after the end of the Second World War, it was widely reviled. It presented a view of the occupation that, whilst honest and accurate in retrospect, had never before been seen in French cinema and which was simply too much for many to stomach. Gabin's character was a particular target for scorn, representing a cynical free-thinking attitude that could only be regarded as dangerous and anti-Republican. The film's director, Claude Autant-Lara, should be credited with immense courage in presenting to the French people his perception of the war, unadulterated by the constraints of convention. That he should achieve this through one of the funniest of French films is a remarkable achievement.

I can think of no other director at the time with the exception perhaps of Julien Duvivier, who would have dared to make this film other than the 'bourgeois anarchiste' Claude Autant-Lara.

The subject of black market profiteering during the Occupation together with the suggestion that French resistance was anything but unified was strictly taboo but its hard-hitting honesty struck a chord with Gallic audiences and the film was a huge success. Even the arrogant young critic of Cahiers du Cinéma, Francois Truffaut, one of this director's staunchest detractors, was surprisingly full of praise, citing the film's 'insistent ferocity.'

The black market is matched by the black humour of the screenplay by Pierre Bost and Jean Aurenche, adapted from Marcel Aymé's story. Even Autant-Lara could only go so far however and the original story's grim ending has been changed to one that is far happier.

The popularity of the film must surely lie in Autant-Lara's casting of the two protagonists Jean Gabin and Bourvil. This was their only film together and the pairing is inspired. Bourvil's innate naiveté contrasts with Gabin's world-weary cynicism and their artistry is superlative.

The film is also of great interest technically as the pair's eight kilometre curfew-defying odyssey across Paris carrying four cases stuffed full of black market pork, is filmed almost entirely in the studio but this works courtesy of Max Douy's sets and Jacques Nattier's 'noirish' lighting. Indeed the lighting of the scene where Martin and Grangil are arrested reminds one very much of German Expressionism.

There are no heroes here, just fallible human beings with all their vices and virtues, trying to survive as best they can. Everyone has to eat after all and as George Bernard Shaw observed: "There is no love more sincere than the love of food'.

Marcel Ayme's original story goes this way. Martin and Grandgil hire out to a corrupt wholesaler, Jambier, in wartime Paris. They agree to transport about 200 lbs of pork in four suitcases to a butcher who is waiting to receive this contraband (rationing is in effect, remember). Grandgil through his histrionics, increases the fee to 5,000 francs from the original 900. They encounter some fascinating and corrupt people along the way. Martin kills Grandgil at the latter's studio: he's enraged by the artist's lack of concern for the value of work and the concept of honor. Martin delivers the pork finally and is arrested for murder.

Well, you wouldn't recognize the story that Aurenche and Bost created out of this sour little saga. They have given it a happy ending. I am not going to tell you what happens to Gabin and Bourvil, but it is a crowd pleaser. I have stated my reserve about late-period Gabin in the past, but here he is terrific. The rant at Jambier's store is very funny: "Jambier, 45 rue Poliveau, my price is a thousand francs!" Bourvil is a great foil for him; he's more rational and less risk-taking than Gabin, if also less imaginative.

It's interesting how quality is just quality. It doesn't matter that you might be a millennial watching this film from France, from the 50's, it's just as good as any more contemporary or culturally relevant top drawer picture.

The best feature in this is efficiency. It's short and sweet (just about 1hr20min), no scene ever stalls the movie, no line in the dialogue branches out into its own thing. It's tight, focused, and efficient. It knows exactly what it's about.

It's both fantastical in its concept and terribly realistic at the same time. Both lead actors were perfect for the cast and play their roles perfectly, while Louis de Funes is also excellent in a more secondary but not any more quiet role.

The film dishes out bits of life lessons here and there, forces a bit of thought and perspective, but never feels self-complacent or happy about itself. It delivers the goods, with a super simplistic plot, a bit of humor, a bit of wisdom, a bit realism, a bit of fantasy; it's a little tragic, but also quite light... and it does it damn well.